1.09.2013

Broadcast

Trish Keenan's passing in 2011 was a tragic loss, but the music left behind in Berberian Sound Studio is a welcome reminder of her talent and Broadcast's legacy. Created in the time before her death with the band's James Cargill, and originally intended as a soundtrack of the film (The Equestrian Vortex) within the film (Berberian Sound Studio), the project expanded to include a vortex of sound and atmospheres that greatly recalls Broadcast's last proper work with The Focus Group. In Berberian the protagonist is a British sound engineer, tasked with scoring a schlocky Italian horror movie, but as the film progresses the monstrous world of sound he creates and the terrifying images on screen drag him further and further from reality. Several of the bits here mirror the knob twisting and jump cutting approach of their work with The Focus Group, but in between those short bursts are some plaintive, hauntingly autumnal pieces that scrape at the bones like wind through stripped branches. As a soundtrack it stands alone from the film to become its own disjointed reality, somehow more than its intention and yet very much a Broadcast album in the vein they were treading at the time of Keenan's departure. It’s a haunting work that's equal to any in their canon.